


Step, Two, Three

by StarsAreMassive



Series: Join Our Houses [5]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Dancing, F/M, Post battle AU, Shireen Lives, season 8 AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:54:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,804
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22270621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StarsAreMassive/pseuds/StarsAreMassive
Summary: Three times Arya and Gendry take the opportunity to dance together, and one time the didn't.
Relationships: Arya Stark & Jon Snow, Arya Stark/Gendry Waters
Series: Join Our Houses [5]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1292831
Comments: 3
Kudos: 86





	Step, Two, Three

**Author's Note:**

> From a prompt I received on tumblr.   
> I'm centralising all my fics on Ao3. I don't normally post anywhere near as much as this.

The first time they ever danced together was the night before the Great War. 

Arya had decided that night, that she fucking loved wildlings. Northmen were her kin and her people, but they were a sombre lot. If left to them, they might have spent what was _very_ likely their last night alive brooding into the flames. And frankly, Jon was doing enough of that for all of them.

But then she heard the jeering, catcalling, whistling and barks, and she turned around and saw wildings running to gather near the fire, others grasping for small instruments like flutes and little drums, and the next thing she knew, there was dancing.

Wildling women grabbed a hold of dour northmen and threw them around in dizzy circles. Tormund didn’t need anyone, and was dancing a jig all his own, and seven hells knew what music he was dancing to because he certainly wasn’t in time with anyone else.

Slowly but surely, the gathered soldiers, young and old, woman and man, found their feet, found a partner, and danced and danced and danced.

Arya watched in awe. Nerves had been bubbling around the camp before. Despair had been festering. Yet now there wasn’t a square inch of their encampment that wasn’t filled with music and giddy laughter, and the exhilaration of being thrown around in a reel.

A low chuckle echoed in her ear. “I leave for not even a full hour, and I come back to chaos? What have you done, Arry?”

Arya smiled, and leaned back into a warm and strong chest. “Don’t go blaming me for any of this, Waters. It was all the wildlings. I had no part in it. And when have you ever known me to dance?”

“Well,” he said brightly and stepped around her to face her. “First time for everything.” He held out his hand and waggled his fingers.

She’d be surprised when she looked back on that night later, but she didn’t hesitate a moment before she put her hand in his, and Gendry pulled her into the calamity taking place by the fire. They held each other tight and jumped and leapt and spun, and their breathless smiles never dimmed. If Tormund eventually wrestled Arya out of her blacksmith’s grasp, and if she later spied Gendry dancing with a furiously blushing Brienne, and if it seemed like a thousand more bodies had joined the fray by the fire when Jon appeared to a raucous cheer and claimed Asha Greyjoy for a round, well, that only made them dance all the harder to get back to each other. 

* * *

The second time was in the forge.

What they had done that night before the war hadn’t really been _dancing_. Not as Lords and Ladies told it anyway, and Arya couldn’t have given less of a shit if she tried about what _they_ thought.

And neither did Gendry, but he was determined not to embarrass himself. And so, one night after most of Winterfell was preparing for bed, Arya found herself in the warmth of the forge, bootless and unarmed, with Gendry huffing all around her.

“I don’t know why I asked you to do this. It’s – I feel like an idiot.”

“You look like an idiot, now come here.” Arya held her arms out and beckoned him forward. Gendry took several very reluctant, trudging steps into her arms.

She took his hands and started to position them to where they should be. One in her hand held high, and one on her waist. As soon as she let go of him, his hands flopped down heavily by his side.

She wasn’t going to skewer him. She _wasn’t_.

“It’s this,” she hissed through her teeth at him, “Or I fetch Sansa to teach you.”

Gendry was on her before she could blink.

“Alright, now…”

She walked him through the steps and he walked over her toes. She lead him through the turns and he tripped her. She counted to keep time and he bumped into anvils on the off beats. She laughed at him and he cursed and stomped and flailed his great arms around and declared no less than six times that it was impossible to teach a Fleabottom bastard blacksmith to dance.

But she knew how hard he would be on himself at the feast – for absolutely _no_ good reason. He was always terrifically good at letting other people look down on him despite his prickly words and gruff nature. So, Arya stayed patient. She slowed down the steps, drew him into pointless conversations, and tugged his chin up whenever he tried to look at their feet.

It took until the sun was dusting the sky with pink, but eventually, they completed a perfect set.

“There,” she smiled, proud and exhausted. She didn’t even put any real strength behind it when she clipped his ear. “Don’t fucking tell me what’s impossible.”

He’d had to carry her to her bed.

* * *

The third time was in the Great Hall. The very next night, in fact.

It was a feast of good will, Sansa had said, inviting the bannermen and restoring some much needed morale as winter wore on. Arya didn’t argue with her sister as much as she could have. Whenever she spoke about what the cooks should prepare, and what songs should be sung and - _“You’re wearing the grey and white dress if I have to force you in it myself, Arya. I’ve fixed it for you, and so help me you will not fight me on this”_ – Sansa got a sparkle in her eye Arya hadn’t seen since they were children.

So she’d worn the dress, the Great Hall was full to bursting and wine and ale had been flowing freely throughout the night. She spotted Gendry only a few tables away from where she sat with her family, talking cheerfully with Podrick and Sam and Gilly. It was going well.

The only dark spot on the evening, was the drunken little son-of-a-lord who had been leering at her all night. Sansa had managed to talk her down to attending with only a small, thin blade tucked into her boots. Only a very slightly sturdier model than the one Gendry had made for Sansa as a gift (and Arya knew for a fact she slept with under her pillow). Arya doubted it would do anything against the fat she could see pressing again his jerkin, but a throat was a throat all the same.

Still. She didn’t want to ruin this for Sansa. As long as the cretin kept his distance, they night would go as smoothly as her sister had hoped.

Only, he didn’t keep his distance. _Of course he didn’t_ , Arya cursed inwardly. He leaned heavily against the wall, threatening a lovely tapestry she was rather fond of, before lurching forward and staggering towards her.

In her strategic mind, Arya was furiously coming up with ways to refuse him, or distract him, or palm him off on anyone else, or render him unconscious, without putting a damper on the evening.

She was coming up horrifyingly blank.

As if she were watching a disaster unfold before her eyes, her feet were stuck and her eyes wide and she couldn’t move as she watched him creep closer and closer, if not always following a straight path. Not five feet from the high table, Arya could have sobbed in relief as Clegane chose that moment to clamber from his seat, making the little piss-lord fall into him. Suitably distracted by the fucking _Hound_ looming over him, Arya tried to look for an escape, but her view was blocked by a shock of dark hair, a pair of bright blue eyes, and the most infuriating smirk in Westeros.

“Will you dance with me, m’lady.” She could hear the laugh Gendry was trying to choke down, as Sansa narrowed her eyes at him and cast suspicious glances between him and the Hound.

“Fuck yes,”Arya breathed, and leapt to her feet, leading Gendry to the floor as far away from the babbling lord she was fairly sure was now pleading to Clegane, as possible.

* * *

The first time they didn’t take the chance to dance together, was on their wedding day.

The vows had been said before the Heart Tree, and the wedding feast was able to begin in true Northern style. Draped in a Baratheon cloak, which had been laboured over by her own sister, and sweet Shireen Baratheon, Arya enjoyed a still and quiet moment, watching the gleeful fun unfold before her. Jon had swung between laughing and near sobbing all night. Tormund had his arm slung around him where he had his head on the table. Jamie and Bronn had started up a drinking game and Tyrion was thrashing them soundly, followed closely by – to everyone’s surprise – Podrick. Brienne was wheeling Bran around as fast as she could, which was as sure a sign as any that she had imbibed more than she should have. But Bran’s smile was the closest she had seen to the little boy she used to know who loved to climb. So Arya doubted Brienne would get into any trouble for it.

And Sansa, Arya was quick to notice, was dancing. Arya had watched as Clegane shuffled and resisted his own feet, and paced up to the table out of Sansa’s sight, before making a hasty retreat, before Sam had finally thumped him one on the arm and pushed him quite violently, towards the top table.

Sansa’s smile had been radiant. And it seemed to have spurred on all of their guest, for shortly, the floor was full of dancers and only the fall-down-drunk and a few wary stragglers sat it out.

Speaking of stragglers…

“Seems everyone is occupied, _wife_.” She’d never heard him say a word with such fervour and joy.

“Husband. Seems they are.”

Gendry put two massive hands on her waist, and leaned in close, nosing her hair and taking in the smell of her without shame.

“Now, I don’t know everything about northern customs –“ Arya snorted and he poked her in the ribs. “But I think we should take the opportunity whilst we have it. Before Jon finds you and offers to kill me again.”

He wasn’t wrong. He’d offered three times already.

Even biting her lip Arya couldn’t stop the grin that swallowed her face. Grasping his hand tightly in his she deftly spun to the side, and pulled them flush against the wall, her feet leading them swiftly to the exits.

“An excellent idea, Gendry,” she laughed as she led them through corridors and, at fucking last, pushed him through the doors of their chambers. “What was it Tom used to sing? _No Featherbed for me?”_

Gendry didn’t stop laughing as she pushed him to the floor.


End file.
